A Common Bird
by iviscrit
Summary: "But perhaps in the utmost chaos there was order, if one looked hard enough, or found the state of mind in which one could see order in everything." Tom visits Minerva after he applies for the job, but alas, not romantically. Please R&R!


A/N: This is less of a fic and more of an entry from my personal project, which I will explain further if asked. However, it loosely fit a McGonagall fic, so I threw it in there anyway. I don't know whether I want to end it here or continue, or perhaps write a sequel. I leave it up to you! So review, and then I can decide. :)

_1957_

The rain had subsided but a faint mist was still falling, turning the air into a mass of sharp wet points, each smaller than a pinprick. From the dry inside of the building it seemed chaotic at first, stepping out into the light mist constantly swirling, but a moment's pause revealed its order. It filled the air, droplets raining down in orderly lines at a heavily angled slant. They filled her hair and settled on her skin, leaving a net of crystals in her hair and a dewy flush on her face.

Chaotic. The word itself sounded like its definition, Minerva decided. But perhaps in the utmost chaos there was order, if one looked hard enough, or found the state of mind in which one could see order in everything. Likewise, she reasoned, even in the most orderly of things there must be chaos, but it would take either a cruel, calculating mind to see it, or a shrewd mind, though not necessarily of bad intentions. She wondered which she was. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know.

Running her hand through her loose hair was like combing her fingers through damp, soft cotton. The hair was freezing to her touch, and gently curled from the humidity, a cohesive whole mass in an oval standing up around her face.

Birds did not fly in the mist. She wondered if it blinded their unguarded eyes, as she raised numb fingers to her glasses, misted and dotted with minuscule flecks of water.

Even though her feet are encased in knee-high boots, the puddles she walks through splash noisily in the calm; the rain is soundless. The droplets she kicks up spot her legs, but not in a visually interesting, harmonious adornment. Above her waist, to the romantic (or perhaps merely frivolous) mind, she took on an ethereal appearance, a dark haired queen crowned in shining droplets that suited her plain appearance better than any jewels could. She was remarkable in that she was not remarkable. But below the waist she is like a child who has just danced through puddles, paying no heed to Mother's admonishing to keep her clothes in order. This dichotomy fits her. She is a woman and a girl, at once jaded but naive, reserved but playful, and she is fully aware of it. Mental maturity aside, she knows she is young.

Lost in her absent-minded thoughts about the rain, she is alone, even as the students talk and mill around her. She stops away from them at the lake, arms folded behind her back, pushing her cloak away from her body as she braces her hands against the arch in her back. She remains this way until the mist -for it was never _rain_ in its truest sense- stops. It is not long before it starts afresh, with an intensity that drenches her clothing, and with a chill that seeps through her skin and into her bones.

Perhaps the rain is not all that has brought the chill.

"Umbrella?" the voice called over the pattering of the raindrops on the lake.

"No, thank you," she calls back. The sky above her, she observed, was like a stretch of slate grey metal, and the clouds stretched and painted wads of cotton. Were it not for the nearly blinding precipitation, she would have tilted her head back to gaze at the equally blinding brightness of the sky. _Like beaten sheets of silver,_ she thought quixotically, and then smiled at her pretentiousness.*

"Do you enjoy being drenched, or do you look forward to the prospect of pneumonia?" The voice is cold. Sarcastic.

Minerva turned, slowly. She knew that voice from _somewhere..._

"Hello, Riddle. Charming, as always."

Voldemort inclined his head. "Point taken. But that is no longer the name I go by, you should know."

"Forgive me for not taking an interest," Minerva said, turning back to survey the lake. "What brings you to Hogwarts? No one has heard anything of you after you left Borgin and Burke's."

"It's no longer of any consequence," Voldemort said dismissively, "but suffice it to say that there was, until recently, a good possibility that we would have been colleagues." His face darkened as he said it, and his lips twisted into a mirthless smile that never reached his eyes.

"Oh," was all Minerva could think to say at first. "Are you... very unhappy?"

"Unhappy?" he repeated. "Well..." And he fell silent, either thinking or refusing to answer.

Minerva was at a loss for what to say to the man. It wasn't as though they were great personal friends from school; to expect him to confide in her his problems was ridiculous, to offer condolences or advice more so. She decided to remain mute until he spoke again, feeling that often, the best way to handle an upset person -if Riddle was truly upset- was to let him sort it out internally, and listen should he want to talk. That was how she herself preferred to be treated under those circumstances, and it seemed hypocritical to adopt a policy she herself abhorred.

A bird flew down, possibly driven to seek shelter from the downpour. The rain hindered its flight but it still maintained an element of charm as it flew nearer them with difficulty. Likely it sought its nest.

Minerva watched, entranced, as the bird flew, and hovered near the flower-like red leaves on the nearby tree, glistening with droplets, before disappearing into the foliage.

"It's a lapwing," he said, following her line of sight.

"It's beautiful," she replied, looking at the spot where it had been.

"A common bird, but pretty enough," Voldemort conceded. But his eyes were on Minerva, not the bird.

She wanted to see the pretty bird again, wing feathers as fluid and silky through the sheets of rain like rivulets of heavy cream. It was difficult to follow the bird's trail through the leaves.

Difficult to follow. Chaos. She wondered...

She turned to face Voldemort appraisingly, taking in his orderly appearance: black robes, neatly pressed, if wet from the rain; good posture, reminiscent of that of a soldier -or perhaps a lord; a lean frame, but athletic; pale complexioned, sharp aristocratic features, but with an oddity about them; dark hair, wavy and sticking to his forehead with the damp; and cold eyes, handsome in shape and coloring, but cold. So very cold. Nothing was really in disorder, but he wasn't perfectly in order either. He looked at her quizzically, raising an eyebrow at her prolonged scrutiny. But Minerva was unfazed.

And shrewdly, she assessed him.

**A/N: According to The Dame, aka Maggie Smith, in Cockney, slang for a girl is "bird." It follows that Voldy would know Cockney since he _is_ from London after all. Just in case anyone picked up on that. :) Please review!**


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